Monday, May 01, 2017

Chopped Suey

“When I see an Oriental Chop Chop or a Secret Asian Man, I feel … weary,” she adds. “Because the language of the Asian salad is revealing of the dangers of bland, disembodied generalization: When you fail to see countries and cultures as discrete entities, what kind of consideration could you be expected to give to individual people?”

In that vein, Tsui argues that the “casual racism of the Asian salad stems from the idea of the exotic — who is and isn’t American is caught up wholesale in its creation. This use of ‘Oriental’ and ‘Asian’ is rooted in the wide-ranging, ‘all look same’ stereotypes of Asian culture that most people don’t really perceive as being racist. It creates a kind of blind spot.”

The problem with creating fake outrage over Chinese food is that you ant to do it again an hour later...